Race Report: 2014 Minnesota Half Marathon

A lot of people question the value of the Minnesota Half Marathon. However, after the race this year, this event should be considered a staple of the Midwest outdoor racing circuit and anyone within reasonable driving distance should put this race on their calendar.

I have often felt that this race rejuvenates my confidence as a skater after the Chicagoland Inline Marathon, as I haven’t been able to keep up with the main pack at that race since I have raced it. Coming out of the Chicagoland, I was aggressive with the two weeks of training I had getting ready for this race. I like this race, generally, even if it is only a half marathon. The road conditions are decent, there aren’t a lot of big hills, and the pace is pretty fast. This is a local race for Minnesota skaters, and it usually draws a big crowd from the local speed skating contingent here. This year was no exception.

I got out of the house and on the road by the time I had planned, but didn’t get to St. Paul, where the race took place, until 7:15 AM. The race was scheduled to start for the Open Wave at 7:33 AM, so I was very late. The line for parking was long, and I still had to get to packet pick-up and get my skates on before getting to the start line. The gear drop was also in an odd place. Thankfully, one of my teammates from Team Rainbo was kind enough to drop my gear bag for me at gear drop while I got my skates on. When I checked in and got my bib, I didn’t get an ankle chip.

I made it to the start line, but just barely before the National Anthem. I got in with the group of skaters in the open group, but was shuffled a couple of skaters back from the start line. The conditions were tight, and it took a bit to get across the start line. At the start, the pace was predictably fast through the turn around. The main group filtered out after a couple of miles. We had a solid group through the first half of the race. Oddly, at about mile 5.5, I was pulling the line and found myself alone. I looked back to see the line dropping off behind me. I knew I wasn’t going to be able to hold that pace through the rest of the race, and opted to let the line catch me. We rotated out, I continued to draft, and as we approached the turn around a couple of skaters got away. Cale Carvell gave chase, and caught the group on the flyer. The line broke up a bit up the hill to the turn around, and I opted to see if I could catch the flyer. It took about a mile, but I managed to reel them in. Unfortunately, the rest of the pack came with us. The last couple of miles were very fast. I managed to duck in behind Roger Olson and hang on to the finish. We were cruising into the final sprint, and I looked to my right only to see one of the other skaters closing, so I shot my right foot out to cross the line first, finishing in the top 5 for the wave, first for my age group, and 33rd overall, finishing in 42:02.30. Full results can be found here. The open wave was lead by Matt Melanson, Cale Carvell, Roger Olson, and myself. However, the official results list Dan Stietz as finishing first, though I don’t know we ever saw him in or around the main pack, and he finished about 3 seconds ahead of the pack. There was some great racing in the open division this year.

Inline Skate Minneapolis‘s race report from the overall event can be found here. Kelin Dunfree pulled out the overall win, followed by Rob Bell and Alex Fadek with Hernan Diaz and Team Rainbo’s Steve Meisinger rounding out the top five finishers. Kaari, over at the Longtrack Life also pulled out her inline skates and raced the event. Her race report can be found here.

My technique was better in this race, but after watching the video and observing some of the other skaters, I can say that the big problem with my technique is where my center of gravity sits over my skates. The other fast skaters have their center of gravity further back over the heels of their skates. Mine tends to be over my skates. I noticed this after the Chicagoland, but this certifies the problem. I have been working on this aspect of my technique. I need to get my balance and weight farther over the heels of my skates, and I will continue to work on this body position. The big benefit of doing this is it forces me to push out to side more effectively, thereby transferring power to the ground more effectively to generate more speed.

The race was a little slower than last year, but my finish result was better in the main pack. While there was a little hiccup with the timing because I didn’t have an ankle chip, the race organizers were very accommodating to add my time to the final results. My helmet camera video follows:

I used DashWare to make the gauge overlay for this video. This process is shockingly more cumbersome than using CycleCam. CycleCam creates the gauge videos with just the use of the Garmin TCX file. However, it doesn’t have very many options for gauges. DashWare has considerably more gauge options, and the gauge designer is very powerful, though not entirely user friendly. DashWare, though, is designed to make the entire video, start to finish. DashWare has options for titling, but isn’t very capable as an editor. I had to make a background to make the green screen so I could use chroma key to overlay the gauges on the camera footage. I like the gauge options, but you have to render the video with audio in DashWare then edit the camera video and gauge video in Lightworks. I am going to keep working with DashWare to see if I can construct a viable workflow. I will have a review of DashWare specifically in the near future.

3 responses to “Race Report: 2014 Minnesota Half Marathon”

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[…] 2014, I stuck with the lead pack all the way through the race. I also had a top 5 finish at the MN Half in August. This ultimately lead me to sign up for Advanced Wave 1, moving from Advanced Wave 2, […]

[…] the start of the year, I planned four races: Roll for the Roses, Chicagoland Inline Marathon, Minnesota Half, and the NorthShore. I ended up skating five races, adding the Apostle Island Marathon the day […]